This two-part panel aims to examine possible answers to the question of the future of inclusive education research. 

With 30 years since the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994) and with the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRDP) in 2026 (UN, 2006) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN, 2015) timeframe for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in five years, it is an opportune time to look at inclusive education developments and consider its future at a global scale. This is particularly the case as the world within which inclusive education originated is very different from the present and certainly from the future. Inclusive education as a polyvocal field emerged at the time that neoliberal policies and globalising economic reforms had a transformative impact on schooling and education. The critical reform project of inclusive education provided a response of hope to these developments. While it is vital to recognise the contributions of inclusive education and how they provided educational opportunities unimaginable before, it is also important to recognise that its full promise has not been realised. In a world that experiences massive geopolitical and economic upheaval, the role of education as a globalised project and the national, public educational systems as drivers of collective identities and consensual understandings of equity are challenged raising questions about the role of inclusive education and the societies that it envisions. This panel discussion aims to explore these issues on a cross-national level by taking a future-forward approach that aims to put forward a manifesto that provides an analysis of the current state by going beyond the surface and what is apparent, and offer a vision, along with some practical guidelines on how to achieve it.We ask what kind of inclusive education research we should do now to set us up for relevance 25 years in the future. Our starting point is that while we struggle to envisage this future, the research we do now matters. There is urgency in exploring which of our theories are robust enough to support optimism and relevance in our research outlook and the questions we ask. We propose that a future-forward approach is necessary to avoid becoming compliant by reproducing old research tropes or ignoring new forms of segregation. To achieve this we aim to understand which factors maintain the status quo in inclusive education research, and we address these concerns in this panel discussion by focusing on four areas: 

• What research questions and what methodologies are needed to ensure that our research is inclusive of those who are concerned and involved in inclusive education? For example, how do we engage with issues of parental choice, positions of unions, children’s rights. 

• How can we engage with challenges within and outside inclusive education? For example, what can we learn and contribute to developments in Artificial Intelligence, climate change, indigenous knowledges.

• How can we engage in and research educational policies that increasingly reflect neoliberal and right wing agendas - and how can inclusive education policies be shaped and maintained in times of these threats? 

• How do we perceive our role as researchers constrained by particular expectations about the type of research that is valued, funded, and the demands on our labour?

As a group of researchers with a commitment to our contexts and a strong interest in comparative and cross-national research, we approach these questions in a dialogic way sharing examples from our local contexts looking at connections, common threads and differences. 

UNESCO. (1994). The Salamanca statement and framework for action on special needs education. Author. United Nations. (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and optional protocol. Author. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Author.